To Make a Hero

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of fantasy books.  My dad used to say that I would never read anything that didn’t have wizards or unicorns in it.  While that’s not strictly accurate—I loved books with dragons and prophecies too—fantasy has been far and away my favorite genre for my entire life.  And being a writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about fantasy tropes and common plot elements.  On my mind today is the typical fantasy hero or heroine, specifically their history or their backstory.  I’ve noticed that often there has to be some form of drama with the protagonist’s family.  Either they are an orphan, or raised by unkind people who are not their parents (or in the case of Harry Potter, both).  Maybe they have lost one parent and the other is incapable of taking care of them, as with Artemis Fowl and Katniss Everdeen.  Maybe their real parents are not who they thought—take Richard Cypher or Prince Cor of Archenland or the wildmage Daine or Lirael of the Clayr (this is a pretty popular form).  Or maybe they never knew who their parents were, or even thought that they had parents, as with Maximum Ride or Septimus Heap.  Maybe their parents or guardians had secrets that are only discovered after their death, as with Jacob Portman or the Baudelaire children.  Whatever the case, it’s nearly a requirement in a fantasy story for the main character to have some shadows in their past.

Archetypes only become archetypes because they work, so what is it that makes this parental mystery so fascinating?  Maybe it’s because we all, in real life, have a fascination with our family history.  Nearly everyone I’ve ever talked to about this has some story about how their parents met, how they came together, what made their relationship unique and interesting.  It’s not just our parents, either.  We look for interesting stories in the past because we feel that those stories reflect well on us.  If we come from somewhere special, that makes us special, too, right?

Of course, there are stories that avoid this.  Only one of the five young heroes of The Dark is Rising series has a mystical background, and Candy Quackenbush could not possibly get more ordinary.  They become special of their own volition, through their responses to the problems that are thrust upon them.  In the end, all of those other heroes I have mentioned do the same.  Often, their magical or mysterious or interesting beginnings are not help but hindrance to them, making them afraid or guarded, or giving them enemies and setting obstacles in their paths.

What I am trying to say is it’s all well and good to be a “chosen one”, to have something mystical or tragic about you from an early age, some destiny that is just waiting to snatch you into an adventure.  But a hero—read, a good, well-rounded, and capable human being—can be raised in an ordinary, loving home, too.  It is not our beginnings that define us, but what we make of what we have been given.  In the end, we must all make our own greatness.  (Dumbledore said something like that at some point, didn’t he?)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go write a story in which someone extraordinary is fascinated by the lives of ordinary people.  Because, in the end, it’s the ordinary things which are the most wonderful.


In order of mention, the books referenced above are: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis, Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce, Lirael by Garth Nix, Maximum Ride by James Patterson, Magyk by Angie Sage, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, and Abarat by Clive Barker.  All are personal favorites of mine, and I highly recommend them.

Once Upon a Happily Ever After

I’ve always been a sucker for a happy ending.  In fact I cannot remember one story that I have loved that didn’t have some kind of a happy ending.  Of course there are marvelous books whose endings could never be called happy, but they don’t live on my shelves.  The books that I own, that I read over and over again, all have some kind of happy at the end—the beginning of healing, a small consolation prize for the main character, or even just a line that indicates that the character will still be able to move on—“Tomorrow’s another day” and all that.

I don’t think I’m the only one.  We all love a good “happily ever after.”  So much, I think, that we’ve begun to look for them in our own lives.  We’re all trying to get somewhere, to crest the hill from which point we can look out at the sunrise and smile, and the screen can fade neatly to black.  Maybe that destination is a lifestyle you want (be it white picket fence and 2.5 kids, or the day you can retire and get an RV to travel the country).  Maybe it’s that new job that you’ve had our eyes on for years.  Maybe it’s when your book will be published or when you’ll finally meet The One.  Maybe it’s just the end of the year and a fresh start on a new one.  Whatever it may be, we’re all trying to get there, but when we do, often we find that there’s just another hill to climb after that.

But the thing is, a story never encompasses an entire life.  What book have you ever read that began on the day a person was born and ended the day they died, leaving absolutely nothing out in between?  What book contains all the falling over and bathroom breaks and sick days and staring at the ceiling that we do?  Not to mention all the time we’re asleep (and not dreaming: just drooling into the pillow).  If there were such a book, I guarantee no one would read it all the way through.  It would come across as disjointed, distracting, and just dull.

No, every story has a point, or a moral, or a theme, and whatever is in the story is leading it to that destination.  The happy ending doesn’t just happen; it was constructed by a biased author who picks and chooses what details will help get there.  Trust me, I’ve been there—I spend weeks at a time trying to figure out which sentences and scenes lead to the ending I want.

So when the ending happens depends on what kind of story you’re telling.  If you’re telling a fairy tale, the ending might be a wedding.  If a tragedy, it might well end with your darkest moment, regardless of whether you ever get out of that darkness.  If it’s a story about a journey, then you might have the ending standing beneath the waterfall roaring down from the rocks, or it might be when you’ve caught the stomach bug and miss out on a concert you were looking forward to, or it might end with you sinking back into your easy chair at home.  (All of those things can and have happened on the same vacation.)  

The point to this story (because this is a story, of a sort, and there is a point, to which I’ve carefully led you) is not to worry about whether or not you’ve reached your happy ending.  There are many, many stories in every lifetime, and so at any given moment you are simultaneously living your happily ever after and waiting for the story to begin.  And take it from a writer who hates nothing so much as the middle of a story: both of those positions are good places to be.

More Grand than Heaven

Obligatory statement of embarrassment as to how long it’s been since I posted to this blog.  Great, moving on.

I adore Les Misérables.  As a musical especially, it is a beautiful story, and I nearly always ugly cry at the finale.  Sometimes I forget, however, how very good the book is, as well.  There are reasons for this, of course: it is a massive book, larger even than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or Outlander, some of the more modern fridge-sized literature.  It took me weeks to finish, where I normally can knock out a book in five or six days, and that was including several long passages on the battle of Waterloo or how ships are built that I flipped past.  But it is a classic for a reason.  

“This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the infinite.”

For those of you who have not read it, nor seen the various plays, musicals, and movies based on it, the story (much abridged) is this: a young man, Jean Valjean, steals a loaf of bread in post-revolutionary era France and is imprisoned.  Thanks to harsh criminal law and his several attempts to escape, he serves nineteen miserable years in prison.  This makes him a hardened, cruel person, but he experiences a life-changing event when, upon his release, he is offered incredible kindness by a priest.  Valjean turns his life around, eventually adopting the daughter of an unmarried woman who dies before she can escape poverty.  But throughout his life and Cosette’s growing up, he is hunted by a policeman named Javert, who refuses to believe that a thief could ever redeem himself.

As is often the case, what is important in the story is not what happens but why it happens and how.  Valjean is like a saint, but there is realism in his desperate struggles with his conscience—one of the most beautiful and relatable passages is the night and day that Valjean spends trying to save a man who has been accused in his name.  Throughout all that time, though he is moving to do the right thing, he consistently makes excuses, tries to find a way that he can escape the confession that he knows he has to make.  His anguish makes him very human, and yet he makes countless sacrifices and proves himself a true hero.  Likewise Javert, Valjean’s enemy and foil, shows a darker realism found in humanity.  He is relentless in the face of justice, even cruel, and yet believes himself to be in the right.  When he is finally forced to see that he was wrong about Valjean, he cannot comprehend or accept that truth, and it destroys him.  (I would have mentioned there would be spoilers, but—well, the book has been in print since 1862, so…)

The quote above was speaking of God, and there are chapters and chapters of Christian ideology in this book.  What I found most interesting, however, was not the way the book talks about God, but the way it talks about humanity.  

“There is a spectacle more grand than the sea; it is heaven.  There is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is the inmost recesses of the soul.”  

The story is really about the nature of humanity, that which we all have in common.  Its enormous and varied cast portrays a sampling of human nature.  We see pure, true love in Marius and Cosette, but also love denied and twisted in Fantine and Eponine.  There is selfless parental love in Valjean for Cosette, and opposing it is Madame Thénardier, who allows her sons to grow up on the streets.  Valjean and his benefactor, M. Myriel, show true selflessness, and then there is sly, grasping Thénardier, who always has another plan for his own gain.  Enjolras embodies patriotism and love of his nation, and he dies senselessly for it, while Marius ends up in the fight almost by accident and survives it.  Young and old, rich and poor, good and wicked—all appear in the pages of this text to show a piece of “this infinity which every man bears within him.”

I could write a dozen posts inspired by this book—on war, love, faith, conscience—and I might.  But what makes this book so real and so relevant, even now, is what it has to say about who we are.  Life may be miserable sometimes, but you can always find happiness and hope if you reach for the better parts of yourself.  This, after all, is all part of “the somber march of the human race.”

A Blessing for a New Home

Even as I write this, the earth is moving.

That’s a bit dramatic, I know.  But that’s what I do as a writer: find dramatic ways to state ordinary things.  For example, the beginning of construction on the church building for Christ the King Presbyterian.  Then again, maybe what I’m doing is exposing the drama in moments that are not ordinary at all.

A church is a family—not for nothing are all those metaphors of being adopted into the household of God.  Even leaving God out of it (impossible as that may be), when you bring a crowd of people who are trying to be the best they can be, together into a group every week—it’s inevitable that they begin to care for one another.  All that warmth and kindness of broken people who know how hard it is to live in a broken world is stronger than the ties of blood.

And when any family finds a home, it is a thrilling thing.  A home bears witness to life and love and death, and a church shelters those things, too—baptisms, weddings, funerals, as well as music and worship and fellowship and the things that bring savor to life.  And this place has been anticipated for over a decade, longer than I’ve been around, but I’ve inherited the excitement.

I was driving by a few weeks ago, before the work started, and a splash of red caught the corner of my eye.  The field where we are building now was then coated with red flowers, a brilliant carpet across the land where our church would be built.  I later learned that the flowers were called crimson clover, a type of wildflower.  The scientific name is Trifolium incarnatum, the latter meaning ‘blood red’. 

I was overwhelmed by the symbolism of this.  I thought, it’s such a shame that we will have to destroy all of these flowers before we can build anything.  How long will it be before flowers grow on this land again?  But that is the world we live in—sometimes things have to be broken and the old ways pulled up before we can move on and build something new.  I read also that this kind of clover is used to feed stock animals like sheep.  It made me smile, and it made me hope, for God is faithful and provides for his flock.  The flowers were like a blessing from God, a sign of provision and beauty to represent His approval.

I’ve saved a few of the flowers pressed in my journal, wanting to remember their beauty even after they are gone.  On Earth, beauty my die, but it lasts in the memory of God, which can never fail, and which holds us safe.

Story Snares

I was talking to a friend today, catching up over lunch.  She asked me how my writing was going, as most of my friends do.  I wasn’t quite sure how to answer.  Yes, I have been writing, quite a bit, lately.  The problem is I haven’t been working on anything of my own.  My current project is a spinoff of a show I’ve been watching lately.  It’s less fanfiction than my personal continuation from the end of the series.  I’ve enjoyed working on it very much, but maybe it’s not what I should be spending my time on.

Then again, I do tend to get caught by stories.  Be it a book or a show or one of my own ideas, good stories get into my head, and until I’ve found a way to resolve the story somehow, at least temporarily, I can’t stop thinking about it.  I’ve spent many a day at work only half-focused on what I am doing, while the rest of my mind guides characters and events along the most logical path.

In fact, I think that is what a story is supposed to do.  Think about the language we writers use when talking about stories.  They talk about a ‘hook’ at the beginning, to lure the reader in as it were.  I think of myself as being ensnared, stuck in the story as if I’m in a trap.  It’s never a bad thing, but it can be inconvenient.

How do I get out?  The easiest way is just to finish the story, of course.  Sometimes I’ll spend hours at a time reading just so I can get through—with television shows, it can take days.  When that’s not an option, as with a book series which is not complete yet, or a show between seasons, I have to fully outline what I would do with the story if I were to continue writing.  This is always good fun, but it can have a downside: if the story comes back, and it’s not as good (in my opinion) as what I come up with, I tend to lose interest.  And of course sometimes a story just stretches out too long.  If I feel like the plot has moved past its natural ending, it loses a part of its hold on me.  I might keep up with it for old times’ sake, but it becomes a toothless trap, one I can slip out of easily.

Despite the inconvenience, I have to appreciate this need to know what happens, to find closure for a story.  It has brought me through a lot of very good story, and I have learned by example.  It is what has helped me to understand how a story takes shape and what not to do with one, and it forces me to practice this on my own.  If not for this, I would never have managed to finish any story of my own.  So I think I will keep working on my little play project, because any day I have spent putting words to paper—no matter what I am writing—is a good day.

In No Particular Order

Here is a list of things that make me sad.

• The birthday party no one attends—whether it’s mine or someone else’s, even someone on television or in a book.  Breaks my heart every time.
• Dead animals at the side of the road.  Even possums.
• ASPCA ads.
• When my cat won’t sit with me.  (This happens often.)
• When I really want something specific to eat like waffles but we are out of a necessary component like syrup.
• When I have finished a stack of exciting new books and have to try and make myself excited about older ones.
• Getting stuck in my writing.
• When someone thinks I am unkind, or prejudiced, or selfish.
• When I hear from an old friend and realize I don’t know them anymore.
• When my friends are sad and I don’t know what to say to make them feel better.

Here is a list of things that make me happy.

• A neat rotation of things that I use—plates, bookmarks, t-shirts—so that none of them get used more often than any of the others.
• Scratching my back, and finally reaching that spot that has been bothering me.
• When my hair has been straightened and it looks nice without my having to do anything but comb it.
• New pens or colored markers or highlighters.
• Crossing things off my to-do list.
• When someone has done something nice for me without my asking for it.
• Adding things to my journal, whether they’re pictures or poems or quotes or new ideas.
• When my cat comes and sits on my lap and purrs.  (A rare privilege.)
• Finding a new book, movie, or show that I really love.  Or re-discovering an old book, movie, or show, and realizing I’d forgotten just how good it was.
• Flowers that smell sweet.
• A cool breeze on a sunny day.
• Pushing through a place where I’ve been stuck in my story.
• When someone tells me that they enjoyed my writing.
• When I hear from an old friend and they are just as loving and wonderful as I remember them.
• When I say something to my friends and it is exactly what they needed to hear.  

Losing the Argument with Myself

I’ve been putting off writing this blog post, which is ironic, because this week’s topic is self-discipline.  I made the decision several hours ago that I would work on a blog post today.  But first I had to mow the lawn (which didn’t get done because it started to rain), and then I had to shower and then I felt I deserved a break, so I watched an episode of a television show—a long episode.  Then I had to feed the cat and do laundry and get some dinner, which meant watching something else, and after all of that I still wasted about thirty minutes on Pinterest.

Why is it so hard to get started on things?  It is the getting started that is the hard part.  I don’t expect this post to take much longer than ten minutes to write.  I have to have plans and organization and goals for myself, and still I don’t always listen when I say to myself that something has to get done.  For me, self-discipline is a constant argument with myself, and it is a difficult one to win, because I have learned to rationalize everything.  I convince myself that my writing is lower quality when I force myself, that after a long day of work I need some time to rest, that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I miss a post this week (although it’s been more than a month since I posted anything).  And just as often, I don’t even bother to have the debate, but simply settle down to what is easy.

The lure of instant gratification is a powerful one.  Logically I know that if I work hard, get my work done, put myself out there, I have a far better chance to be a success—but for tonight, for now, I am tired, and it is so comfortable here in the chair and I don’t want to get up—sound familiar?

I don’t have any magic fix for this, I’m afraid.  As I said above, I spent this very day procrastinating and lazing around.  The only thing that I’ve found to be effective is time, and constant reminders of what needs to get done.  For me, there is a reminder hanging on the wall by my desk of today’s task, be it writing or editing or blogging.  It is clearly visible whenever I look up at the clock or turn to the window, and it always gives me a little pang of guilt if I’m goofing off.  Eventually, I get the work done, just to be able to move it off the wall. 

Sounds silly, but it works, because it means I have set expectations for myself, and if I can’t meet those, I am only letting myself down.  And if I can’t meet my own standards, how can I expect to measure up to anyone else’s?